Why doesn't the government work on any really serious problems...like halitosis?

I have remained silent on this issue for far too long. However, it's time to "bite the bullet" and speak up. The issue is this: There are far too many people in the world who are completely clueless about how bad their breath is. And to compound the problem, none of us will tell them about it. We just stand there and grin and pretend that we are completely enjoying the fact that six inches away from us there is a volcano issuing forth toxic gases that could wilt a two-by-four.

Seriously, this is a major problem. Even when we do work up the courage to try and do something about it, things often backfire. I tried once to tell a friend that perhaps a couple of tic tacs would be in order, and might even help him to get a second date. He never spoke to me again. I was just trying to help. Really.

Just the other day I was working with an individual whose breath was somewhere around 7 to 8 on the 10 point scale where 1 is fresh, sweet mountain air and 10 is a mixture of dead fish and rotted, maggot infested cow. I pulled out a couple of breath mints and offered them to him in a polite, but non-threatening way and he smiled back at me and said, "No...no, thanks. I'm fine." I wanted to scream, "No, you are not fine! Your breath smells like you ate a pot of ten-year old fermented gingko berries for breakfast!" (And, by the way, I do know what rotted, fermented gingko berries smell like because there is a tree full of them right outside my office building that fall all over the sidewalk every year and then get stepped on and tramped into the building where we all look around to see who stepped in the doggy you-know-what).

But I digress...I, of course, did not say that his breath smelled like fermented gingko berries. I just smiled and took a couple steps back, a move that would have helped except for the fact that he then took a couple of steps forward to keep our conversation more personal, I suppose.

Well, I have a plan to solve this problem and I mean to get to work on it right away. I am planning to see if I can get President Obama to take this on. He is one of the few people who has the will and the means to tackle a problem as serious as this one. I hope that by next year we can have breath scanners in all public places...no...why stop there. We'll get him to put whole body smell scanners. That way we can catch those with any kind of offending body odor (from whatever part they are coming from). Those who do not comply will be locked up together for a couple of days to enjoy each others company and emanations.

This whole idea has me so worked up that I'm getting hungry. Think I'll go finish that leftover garlic and anchovy pizza.